Back in the Command Center

It’s our first night in our new home, coming at the end of an incredibly busy day of moving in and unloading stuff. Apple was exhausted and fell asleep early, while my boss and I unloaded his old computer desk from his truck and into my study. The next (and last) big delivery contains our refrigerator, washer and dryer, which are coming on Tuesday morning. Then it’ll be all over but the unpacking — a monumental task in and of itself.

I should be exhausted too, but I’m still a bit giddy. Time for a shower and then some reading in bed…that always does the trick.

A Homeowner Once More

Things got a little crazy right at the very end, with the inclusion of a federal holiday that we all forgot about (whoops — it’s Presidents Day!). But now I can finally say that Apple and I are homeowners again. It feels like it’s been forever, but it’s only been a couple of months.

This past week has been quite a trip. While we were pseudo-vacationing in Florida, I received word from the mortgage company that our approval had come in. However, the lender still needed to coordinate with our title company on getting the settlement statement prepared. Because they waited until Friday — one business day before closing — to do this, there was some question whether it was actually going to get done on time at all. It did, thankfully, but by then it was too late for me to wire the money to the title company and have it fund on the same day. This caused some concern for a while, but in the end, funding the transaction one day late didn’t cause any grief at all.

We went to our closing appointment on schedule at 9 a.m. Monday morning, where I must have signed my name about a hundred times…no surprise there. After a pretty painless hour of document-signing and paper-shuffling, during which I mostly just re-read the same pages that I’d read draft copies of a dozen times already during the approval process, it was all said and done. Later that afternoon, the sellers came in and did their own signing, and our wire transfer finally went through on Tuesday morning. At lunchtime today, I dropped by the title company and officially picked up my key. The place is OURS!

I’d like to give a special mention to our realtor Gene, and the folks at the title company, for being about as pleasant as imaginable to work with during the whole affair. (Similar mention does not go out to the mortgage lender for having very poor communications skills, but what the hell…I got their money now, so I’m not holding any grudges.) It was really a breath of fresh air after what I believe were two very unpleasant (or at least mediocre) experiences with realtors in Florida.

Anyway, we would just move right in, but of course the sellers wanted to lease it back from us for a few days. However, I hear that they may not even be there for the full length of the four-day lease term; apparently they’ve packed everything already and their movers are coming tomorrow. They’re contracted tenants until Thursday evening, but if we can get in sooner, we will — if only just to wander through the place and enjoy our first taste of our new home. Although I only have the one key right now, I’m told that the rest of the keys, garage door and gate openers are inside on the counter, which will be the first thing that I verify when we get there.

Since the closing, I’ve spent the intervening day and a half on the phone (and Internet) with just about everybody, setting up utilities and services that we’ll need. The electricity, gas, water, sewer and trash pickup service begins on Friday. I’ve got Time Warner coming to install RoadRunner Turbo Internet service on Saturday evening. Our PODS with all of our belongings also arrive on Saturday, and then on Sunday the movers show up to help us unload all of the big stuff.

To cap it all off, this evening, we went down to Fry’s Electronics and officially ordered our new refrigerator, clothes washer and dryer, for delivery next Tuesday. In Texas, these appliances don’t convey with the property, unlike in Florida, so a buyer has to supply their own. We didn’t bring ours, which means additional expense, but at least for that price you get to pick the exact appliances you want. We picked out all Samsung stuff: A 26 cubic foot French door refrigerator with stainless platinum finish, and a Samsung front-loading steam washer and steam dryer set. (Those who know me will no doubt be unsurprised to learn that I’ve already read the manual for the fridge, and the washer/dryer manuals are coming tonight.)

I also got the car insurance transferred over, so that next week I can officially get going on that next odyssey. First thing will be to replace the Florida-grade (read: illegal) window tint on the Mazda. Then get the car inspected. Then take the inspection certification and insurance info to the Lewisville DMV office and get the registration and plate. Then take that to a state office to get Texas driver licenses. Then, finally, get Toll Tags from the NTTA. The whole process is probably gonna take a week or two…and then when the GTO finally gets here, I’ll have to do some of it yet again. But it’ll be worth it, for sure. I’ll feel legit!

Tomorrow’s my birthday, and it’ll be a decidedly more pleasant birthday than last year’s, wherein my declaration of “Fuck it” was basically the only thing that saved my thirtieth birthday from being just another humdrum day of stress and worry with no real outlet or perspective. Even though some of the same things that were irritating me in last year’s birthday post again reared their head this year — chief among them, issues with our health insurance — my reaction to them today is vastly different, because I have context. I have more friends, I have other perspectives and I have a blanket of optimism I can look to whenever shit hits the fan. I didn’t have that before, because we essentially lived in a vacuum, seemingly surrounded by incompetence. No longer.

I’ll go into my thirty-first year with a much, much greater sense of happiness, purpose and inspiration than I’ve had in at least ten years, and that is really saying something. Something awesome.

Wired

It’s sleepy-bye time here in Frisco, but as the night begins to settle in, I’m wired. As usual.

Everyone else has long since gone to bed, but I’ve got far too much on the mind for sleep just yet. Two days away, after all, is our closing date: the day we pay a big chunk of change for the privilege of living in our own home. Everything was supposed to be settled and done by now, but as always, there was just enough chaos in the mix to introduce lingering uncertainty. I’m happy to report, at least, that this kind of uncertainty concerns only trivial issues like whether we take possession of the home on Saturday or Sunday. The fact that we will take possession, at last, is certain.

The biggest complication? In addition to being our closing date, Monday is also President’s Day — a fact that every party to our transaction overlooked until this afternoon. Our lender finally submitted the docs for our loan to the title company today, but never got around to finalizing and returning the settlement statement that the title company generated, probably thinking it wouldn’t matter because Monday is a holiday. Well, not for us, and not for our title company.

The closing will proceed as scheduled, but unfortunately I was not given even the draft of the settlement statement until after 4 PM today, which is after the cutoff time for wire transfers to fund same-day. Thus, the wire I sent won’t fund until Tuesday — the day after closing.

This isn’t really that big of a deal except that the sellers have a stipulation in the contract that says they get to lease the house back from us for four days after funding, not closing, thus potentially delaying our actual move-in by one day. They asked for this because they were afraid that our financing would fall through (I can’t really blame them) and they are saving the bulk of their actual move-out for those four days. My hope is that we can convince them that the funding is all here and it’s just a wire transfer delay due to President’s Day, so they won’t try to push back their lease by a day. Sadly, my bank can provide no written evidence that I submitted the wire, but offered to host a 3-way conference call between us and the selling party wherein they could say that the wire has been submitted. Whatever…my brain is starting to melt at this point, frankly.

All-in-all, though, this process will be over within 7 or 8 days, with the 7 or 8 being the only real question left — so I think we’re in a pretty good position here, finally.

In the meantime, it’ll be business (mostly) as usual. This evening we all got together at my boss’s house for hamburgers, hot dogs, Bratwurst and good company — a fabulous time. We spent most of the night on the patio, enjoying the cool and dry Texas breezes after a day of over 80 degree temperatures, a welcome change from the snow and ice we had just one week ago. The weekend looks to be fairly quiet, consisting of one part sidework and one part leisure time, during which I hope Apple and I can get back out on the town for further exploration or even some grocery shopping. Any time we get to spend together is always a good time.

No doubt I’ll post the results of the closing come Monday night, so stay tuned.

Down to the Wire

It’s actually very warm tonight, to the point where I like my feet to stick out of the blanket — which isn’t hard, given my height. This seems strange, after how just two nights ago we were bundled up in here with three layers of blankets just to keep from turning into popsicles before morning. Apparently what they say about Texas weather is true: “If you don’t like it, just wait a minute.”

The Great Home Buying Adventure of 2011 is just about down to zero hour now, and by now you’d think we’d have some kind of guarantee that yes, our loan has been approved. Well, we don’t. Everything looks to be on track, we’ve been getting all of the pieces like our survey, title policy commitment, insurance, etc…except I still can’t say with any certainty that the biggest lynchpin of all, the loan, is a go. This is perfectly normal, our realtor assures us. He’s seen it all, and lately, lenders are still asking for more and more arcane financial and personal documentation all the way up to the closing date. It’s like the real qualification test isn’t whether your finances are in order, but whether you are organized and diligent enough to keep up with all of the paperwork requests. Either way, this detail-oriented, ass-covering fanatic is ready to rise to it.

Two nights ago, I sent in what I dearly hope is the last of it. The fact that they’re asking for such trifling minutiae as a copy of the canceled check for the earnest money we paid to the title company just last month suggests that they must be about ready to approve the loan. After all, if my finances and credit were in shambles, why nitpick over such small potatoes? At this point I have a good feeling that it’s all going to work out, but I have a harder time feeling confident that we’ll make the scheduled closing date of February 21st. Everyone involved in the process says there’s no reason to worry about missing the date yet. I guess I should defer to their judgment, especially since there’s nothing more I can do.

I got a call today from one of our family members who lives here in Dallas, telling us to let them know if there’s anything they can do to help us settle in once we get the house. It was really a nice gesture and just another reminder of the many good things we have going for us here. Honestly, I just want to get moved in so I can finally tell everyone what’s going on and lift the anti-jinxing media blackout!

This Sunday, Apple and I will fly back to Florida for a few days in the sunshine before we return for the closing “ceremonies” — thanks to an invitation from my parents. This has been an abysmal winter for Texas and we were looking mighty forward to getting out of it when we booked the trip…of course, now it looks like the weather in Frisco and Naples will be fairly similar all next week. Oh well! It’ll be fun nonetheless.

Tonight we went out for some authentic Texas barbecue at a place called Hutchin’s in McKinney. Housed in a barn, the restaurant serves up smoked meats ranging from brisket, ribs and pulled pork to turkey, chicken and sausage. We went with several of our friends and had a good time. Not only that, but before the meal I dredged up several “buy one, get one” coupons off the ubiquitous Internet that shaved significant coin off each of our checks. Two people each getting stuffed on barbecue for $13 total is always a good thing.

Tomorrow morning I’m heading out early for the monthly Cars & Coffee show, then it’ll be a largely quiet Saturday of errands and side job work before we leave for a few days of Florida sun on (appropriately) Sunday. I even think I might take a day off while I’m there — since I get paid vacation now!

Hopefully, when we get back, we’ll be just hours away from owning our own corner of the world again. A much nicer, much bigger corner, at that.

Snowpocalypse Dallas 2011

George Broussard called it “Snowpocalypse Dallas 2011″ as he tweeted a photo of his backyard, which was covered with a dusting of fine, fresh snow. Broussard, a senior figure in modern video game design and president of what used to be 3D Realms, has been someone whose exploits I’ve followed since the 1990s…and whom now I find myself living within a stone’s throw of. (It’s a small world after all.) Being a native of Michigan, however, if this is the Snowpocalypse, then I’m probably not going to have that much trouble with north Texas winters.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for all of the ice, this weather event would have been little more than a picturesque curiosity. It began last night as we headed to bed: rain, followed by gusting winds that dashed the downpour against our upstairs window. Then the rain turned to freezing rain, and as morning neared, transformed into something that the locals call “thunder sleet”. The result was a near solid inch of hardened ice on nearly every surface, and it was that ice that resulted in the shutdown of nearly everything in the Dallas metroplex.

We may not have our own home here yet, but I am equipped to work from the place where we’re staying, so that’s what I did. It was the perfect day to stay indoors and telecommute while airy, cotton-like snowflakes swirled around outside and transformed the landscape into something that, while treacherous, was a pleasure to behold.

Meanwhile, we continue to wait for some word from our mortgage lender as to whether we are to be allowed to purchase the home we expect to live in for the next chapter of our lives (and perhaps a good deal longer besides — who’s to say). I called in to check up on things this morning and learned that we’d probably hear back from underwriting either tomorrow or Thursday. Until then, we wait with bated breath. I can only hope that my unusually high credit scores afford me a margin of luck as my entire financial history is scrutinized, and that the end result catapults us forward to meet our goals head-on, rather than backwards to the bottom of this ladder that we’ve already scaled nearly to the top.

I’m still debating whether to go into the office tomorrow or not. I lean towards “not”, as today was the first opportunity I’ve had to work from home since we left Naples and I rather enjoyed it. Plus, the ice certainly isn’t going anywhere and the various school districts in the metroplex have already canceled Wednesday’s classes in advance. Tomorrow night my boss and his family (whose house we’re staying at) have tickets to the Cirque du Soleil show that’s here in Frisco, but as the performance tonight was canceled due to weather, we’re not sure they’ll be going. If they do, Apple and I will have the night to ourselves for the first time in a while — that would be fun.

Otherwise, it’s been a typical pattern of work and dealing with various paperwork issues related to our change of venue from Florida to Texas. I’ve been enjoying some of the spoils of my boss’ incredibly vast TV and movie collection, playing the newly-released Dead Space 2 on my Xbox 360 and making repeated excursions to Red River Motorcycle Trails for some fun with power toys. I’ve mostly tried not to think about (what could be) our new home too much, although in a brazen and direct violation of my usual anti-jinxing behavior, I’ve been collecting user manuals for the house’s various appliances, fixtures and systems in hopes of coming out ahead of the curve. You know…just in case.

More later.